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PECAN GROWING IN INDIANA 

 By J. F. Wilkinson, Rockport, Indiana 



While the pecan in this section is found growing along the Ohio 

 river and its tributaries in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, and some 

 of our now named varieties originated in Kentucky and Illinois, they 

 are mostly in a radius of fifty miles of Evansville, Indiana, which is 

 about the center of this group, and the pecan from this part has 

 usually been spoken of as the Indiana pecan, including all growing in 

 this territory, and I shall term them so now. 



Pecan trees have been growing in this territory for centuries, as 

 some of these giant old trees are living testimony today. They no 

 doubt furnished food for the Indian long before the coming of the 

 white man. 



The early settlers and, sotry to say, many until recent years, did 

 not regard them as valuable enough to leave. So many of them fell 

 before the woodsman's ax to clear the ground for agricultural purposes, 

 and today the only natural groves of any size are mostly on land un- 

 desirable for cultivation. Yet many corn fields in this valley are 

 dotted with these trees that were left by some of the more far-sighted 

 ones in clearing the land. 



The product of these trees varies greatly. No two seedling pecan 

 trees are exactly alike in their habits and production of nuts. 



While about one-half of these seedling trees seldom bear a good 

 crop, and a large majority of the remainder produce small pecans, 

 there is now and then one towering far above all its neighbors as to the 

 quality of nut it produces. 



Having been born and reared within sight of many of these trees, 

 this gave me the opportunity to study them early in my life, and long 

 before the Northern Nut Growers Association was organized, or I had 

 any thought of the pecan in the future, I was well aware of the fact 

 that some trees were superior to others. 



My first school days were spent in a school house surrounded by 

 pecan trees, and if there is anything that will make a school boy's 



